FREE WHITEWATER

City, Culture, Daily Bread, Newspapers, Social Media

Daily Bread for 9.22.25: The Problems of a Local News Desert

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Good morning.

Fall begins in Whitewater with partly cloudy skies and a high of 76. Sunrise is 6:42 and sunset is 6:51, for 12 hours, 9 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1862, Pres. Lincoln issues a preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation. 

A news desert, simply defined, is a place without a professional newspaper, as a natural desert is an arid place without much precipitation. (In this metaphor, the presence of a newspaper provides nurturing information the way rainfall nurtures vegetation.)

There are degrees of news deserts: no professional newspapers, professional newspapers behind paywalls that discourage many potential readers, professional newspapers behind paywalls that discourage some potential readers, professional newspapers without paywalls, citizen journalism1 efforts on the web or social media dedicated to news, and social media platforms that discuss news only incidentally and occasionally.

(Obvious point: FREE WHITEWATER is a site of commentary; it’s not a site of reporting the news, but of commenting on the news. This libertarian blogger comes from a newspaper-reading family2, and although there are ever-fewer serious newspapers left in this country, the distinction between news and opinion still makes sense to me.)

The lack of professional journalism is made worse by the lack of accessible professional journalism: few residents in communities like Whitewater pay to get past a paywall. Anyone who tells you otherwise, especially advertising sales teams, is wrong. (In the case of an ad sales team, they’re lying.) What’s behind the paywall stays unread behind the paywall. People may read a paywalled story’s headline on Facebook, and react to that headline alone, but few will subscribe to read the full story.

There’s another problem of a news desert. The communities in which deserts emerge are often also fragmented and factionalized, as Whitewater is. (I’ll leave aside whether the emergence of factions leads to the decline of newspapers or the decline of newspapers leads to factionalization. The causes and effects are not so simple as that.) It’s enough to know that Whitewater has several factions, in the city and small towns comprising the rest of the area’s school district, and they have decidedly different outlooks among them. The Whitewater area’s residents commonly gather and support in unison some events (holidays, sporting events), but are divided on many political and cultural issues. These are deep divisions, and they’ve grown in the 2010s and 2020s.

This fragmentation naturally leads residents to look in different directions, consistent with their outlooks, and there’s no single news source that everyone here reads. Some will read one source, some another, some nothing at all. That’s Whitewater today; that’s the direction in which Whitewater has been traveling for the last quarter century, and certainly since the Great Recession. (Irony: by the time the city developed its own citizen news site in 2006, the Great Recession that began the next year was destined to take the area down a path of socio-economic fragmentation3 that would make a predominant news source, especially one without the gravitas of professionalism, less likely. )

This leaves a community’s grasp of policy and policymaking only weak and partial. Politics may involve a single event (a candidate’s claim, an election result), but policy and policymaking require more detail than those political events. A successful news site must cover many meetings, many details from those meetings, and in doing so give its readers an informed background on a local topic. Social media algorithms, notably, don’t make the history of policy proposals a priority. (Helping readers follow a months-long policy debate on Facebook isn’t Meta’s primary, secondary, or even tertiary goal.)

A successful news site attracts readers who follow along, well-crafted story after story, and so become knowledgeable on a topic. It attracts those readers because it offers that kind of coverage. False claims and misinformation are common in a community without a true newspaper of common record. (The formal designation paper of record means little apart from the publication of legal notices. It’s a community understanding of basic facts on policy and policymaking that makes a news site a community record.)

A community with partial information is at a disadvantage in policymaking, as policymaking requires thorough, accessible, and well-read information about a topic.

Tomorrow: Some solutions for a news desert.

____

  1. It’s certain — absolutely certain — that a professional journalist who reads FREE WHITEWATER will now contact me and say: “there is no citizen journalism, only professional journalism, and you should know that by now.” I will then reply: “Well, I know that in places without doctors or trained first responders, sometimes communities are left to rely on a few residents with a first aid kit.” My reply will not go over well… ↩︎
  2. That I’m referring to news sites on the web as newspapers is the tell that I grew up in a print era, when there were printed books, magazines, journals, and newspapers all over the house. So ingrained are these memories that although this site is on the web, I still sometimes refer to professional journalism sites as newspapers. In my practice, almost everything I read and write is digital, and yet my usage sometimes remains rooted in an earlier time. ↩︎
  3. This reveals the fate of Whitewater’s aged special interest men: the town’s culture — culture, not government — has changed so much that they have nowhere near the clout the last generation had. Simply put, a younger generation cares about many things, but understandably doesn’t base its views on yesteryear’s perspective. ↩︎

Heavy rainfall floods streets in southern France:

Daily Bread, Nature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 9.21.25: The Fall Color Report

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 75. Sunrise is 6:41 and sunset is 6:53, for 12 hours, 12 minutes of daytime. The moon is new with 0.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1780, Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.

Fall, the best season of the year1, begins tomorrow. And if Fall, then a Fall Color Report:

If Fall, then Oktoberfest, and if Oktoberfest in Cincinnati, then a Wiener Dog Race:

_____

  1. Of course it’s the best season of the year. Those other seasons are second best or lower. ↩︎

Daily Bread, Gov. Evers, Health, Laws/Regulations, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 9.20.25: Evers Administration Order Requires COVID-19 Vaccine Coverage in Wisconsin

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 77. Sunrise is 6:40 and sunset is 6:55, for 12 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 1.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1982, players in the National Football League begin a 57-day strike.

Wisconsin Department of Health Services state epidemiologist Dr. Ryan Westergaard described an executive order from Gov. Tony Evers that requires health insurance to cover access to COVID-19 vaccines.

The executive order appears below:

EO275-VaccinesDownload

Wis. Exec. Order No. 275 (Sept. 15, 2025), available at https://evers.wi.gov/Documents/EO/EO275-Vaccines.pdf

See also Protecting Wisconsin Vaccine Access, FREE WHITEWATER, 9.16.25.

Is this really the world’s largest mirror?:

The smooth surface of the shallow water covering this huge salt flat in Bolivia acts like a giant mirror. Tourists travel to the Salar de Uyuni to see the effect and walk out into the lake. Now scientists have used satellite data and on-the-ground measurements to determine exactly how flat the surface of the water is – but how it stays so smooth is still a mystery.

City, Daily Bread, Development, Special Interests

Daily Bread for 9.19.25: The Shock of the Normal

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 81. Sunrise is 6:39 and sunset is 6:57, for 12 hours, 18 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1796,  George Washington’s Farewell Address is printed across America as an open letter to the public.

Consider a small town (you might have Whitewater in mind) that was once a predominantly status-based culture (with social ties mattering more than talent, perimeter-fencing and gate-keeping by a few local figures, resistance to change, grandiose — indeed, ludicrous — claims of talent from these few, and mutual back-patting among them).

A few like that would have been those that a libertarian blogger might have satirized (ridiculed, truly) as town squires, town notables, etc. Needless to say, no person not in the grip of intoxication or mental malady would believe that such few were unsurpassingly talented except in unsurpassed self-praise. Their ideology was boosterism, and their idols were those they saw in their mirrors each morning.

That culture is on the wane in many places now, with Whitewater, happily, being among those places. What’s left of it looks old, odd, and obtuse.

A status-based culture, with a small special-interest faction, would prefer politics over policymaking. Of politics, it is enough to win control of a council, board, or commission. No one needs talent to fund a catspaw’s campaign or put up yard signs. No catspaw needs talent to vote the way he was told to vote once he is in office. (It’s enough to know: vote yea or nay on the issues that matter to a special-interest faction. Afterward, one can pretend to be reasonable, and perhaps even to speak reasonably, on topics generally. In this way, a clever catspaw becomes, to add another metaphor in the mix, a Judas goat.)

Policymaking, where one has to craft thoughtful plans in writing (memoranda of economics, development, or law), is not to the liking of a special-interest group. They want a result, a favorable decision, a conclusion that advances their self-interest. Details need to be few for that ilk, mere appliqués to create the impression of reasonable.

And so, and so — when along comes true policymaking, genuine nuts-and-bolts considerations, the special interests of a status-based culture have fits. They grew up in a culture that did not require them to craft something; they grew up in a culture allowing them to demand something.

And look, and look, about Whitewater — for the first two decades of this century, Whitewater’s special-interest men produced not a single serious policy document of their own. The city had good consultants (Ehlers and Strand) and poor ones (Trane), but these special-interest men, themselves, crafted nothing beyond their own insistence. They didn’t need to write as long as they could talk, and they only needed to talk long enough to command others while praising themselves.

When, in communities like Whitewater today, meritocracy comes along, it’s a shock to the remaining few aged and average men of yesteryear. They’d rather get rid of what they don’t like rather than negotiate. They’d prefer a politics of control over policymaking through discussion.

What shocks them is simply the Shock of the Normal: a normal place of policymaking, of meritocracy, of the openness to talent that has made communities across America the envy of the world.

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, September 23rd, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, The Friend

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Tuesday, September 23rd at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of The Friend @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Comedy/Drama Rated R (language)

1 hour, 59 minutes (2025)

When a solitary writer adopts and bonds with a Great Dane that belonged to a late friend, she begins to come to terms with her past and her own creative life. Starring Naomi Watts, Bill Murray and Apollo (Great Dane).

One can find more information about The Friend at the Internet Movie Database.


Daily Bread, Language, Wisconsin, Writing

Daily Bread for 9.18.25: Wisconsin’s landscapes in Niedecker’s life of language

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:38 and sunset is 6:58, for 12 hours, 20 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 10.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 324, Constantine decisively defeats Licinius in the Battle of Chrysopolis, establishing Constantine’s sole control over the Roman Empire.

On the Rock River near Lake Koshkonong, Lorine Niedecker built a life in language. From the solitude of Blackhawk Island, she wrote poems animating the marshes and swales near Fort Atkinson. Nicholas Gulig traces the reach of Niedecker’s voice as a Midwestern working-class writer within the modernist currents of 20th-century poetry.

The stealthy approach:

Daily Bread, Gubernatorial Race 2026, Politics, Wisconsin, WisDems

Daily Bread for 9.17.25: The Wisconsin Democrats’ Need for a Wild Card

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:37 and sunset is 7:00, for 12 hours, 23 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 18.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1787, the United States Constitution is signed at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, bringing the Constitutional Convention to an end.

While it seems improbable to me that State Rep. Francesca Hong will be the Democratic nominee in the 2026 gubernatorial race, she’s not wrong to see that the primary race will have a role for a wild card:

A Democratic state lawmaker who is promising to be a “wild card” joined Wisconsin’s open race for governor on Wednesday, saying she will focus on a progressive agenda to benefit the working class.

State Rep. Francesca Hong, who lives in the liberal capital city of Madison, is embracing her outsider status. In addition to serving in the state Assembly, Hong works as a bartender, dishwasher and line cook. As a single mother struggling with finding affordable housing, she said she is uniquely relatable as a candidate.

“I like considering myself the wild card,” Hong said. “Our campaign is going to look at strategies and movement building, making sure we are being creative when it comes to our digital strategies.”

Part of her goal will be to expand the electorate to include voters who haven’t been engaged in past elections, she said.

See Scott Bauer, Democrat Francesca Hong promises to be ‘wild card’ in Wisconsin governor’s race, Associated Press, September 17, 2025.

The WIGOP candidates in the gubernatorial primary have a clear formula for winning the nomination:

(SOME MONEY) + (PLENTIFUL EXTREMISM) + (MR. TRUMP’S ENDORSEMENT) = WISGOP GUBERNATORIAL NOMINATION

The WisDems, like national Democrats in many places, are unsure how to proceed under a second Trump Administration. There’s no consensus whatever. Democrats within the state have different approaches, and Democrats outside the state are even further apart from each other on both strategy and tactics. Democrats need something more than their current disordered posture.

Francesca Hong may not be the wild card that the WisDems need, but they could use a wild card or two to redirect their diffuse, unfocused efforts.

Tesla’s self-driving mode may struggle near railroads:

Daily Bread, Health, Vaccines, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 9.16.25: Protecting Wisconsin Vaccine Access

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:36 and sunset is 7:02, for 12 hours, 26 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 27.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1959, the first successful photocopier, the Xerox 914, is introduced in a demonstration on live television from New York City.

Fair use, Link.

The faction that only a few years ago insisted that it wanted ‘choice’ over vaccinations now wields federal power through Robert Kennedy Jr. Theirs was, predictably, a disingenuous advocacy. They were not merely vaccine skeptics for themselves — they opposed all vaccinations. When out of power they called for choice. Once in power, Kennedy began imiting access to vaccines and research on vaccines. Kennedy’s an extreme vaccine skeptic; indeed, he’s an inveterate opponent of modern medicine.

In response to anti-vaccination restrictions, Gov. Tony Evers has signed an executive order on vaccine access:

Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order Monday requiring insurance companies to continue covering COVID-19 vaccines as changes out of federal health agencies have restricted eligibility for the shots.

In the order, Evers called on the state Department of Health Services and pharmacy and insurance boards to “ensure vaccine access for Wisconsinites to the fullest extent of the law and available funding.”

It would also require DHS officials to respond publicly to changes in federal policy that spark “confusion and uncertainty,” offering new guidance about vaccine safety and accessibility as needed.

….

Previously, federal guidance recommended these vaccines for most people at most ages. Those recommendations reflected longstanding public health and scientific consensus stating that widespread vaccination is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of many diseases.

Those changes have taken place under direction from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a vaccine skeptic who has led the national Department of Health and Human Services since February. He’s overseen a seismic shakeup in national health policy and at agencies, including the ousting of leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the removal of experts from vaccine advisory committees.

See Anya van Wagtendonk, Gov. Tony Evers signs executive order on vaccine access amid federal uncertainty, Wisconsin Public Radio, September 15, 2025.

Here’s Why Vaccine Hesitancy Is A Growing Problem:

Public health experts have been alarmed by Donald Trump picking a vaccine-skeptic to head the US Department of Health and Human Services. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination comes as falling vaccination rates for diseases such as measles have led to a spike in cases globally. What’s behind anti-vaccine sentiment, how is it evolving and what effect is it having on public health generally? Sam Fazeli is Director of Research at Bloomberg Intelligence and has PhD in pharmacology. He joined Stephen Carroll the latest on episode of our Here’s Why Podcast to discuss the growing problem of vaccine hesitancy

Daily Bread, Gubernatorial Race 2026, Wisconsin, WisDems, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 9.15.25: The Candidates for Wisconsin Governor, So Far

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 82. Sunrise is 6:35 and sunset is 7:04, for 12 hours, 29 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 37.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1959, Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.

As of this morning (and the day is still young), here’s a list of the Republicans and Democrats running for governor:

Republicans

Democrats

For both major parties, others are likely to enter the primary races.

The Wisconsin 2026 gubernatorial primary is August 11, 2026.

German divers try to recover World War II ammunition under the Baltic Sea:

A team of German divers is on a mission to recover at least 300,000 tons of WWII ammunition under the Baltic Sea.

Courts, Daily Bread, Gov. Evers, Laws/Regulations, Legislature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 9.14.25: Evers Administration Sues Over Legislature’s Block on Rulemaking

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 82. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset is 7:05, for 12 hours, 32 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 48.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1994, the remainder of the Major League Baseball season is canceled because of a strike.

In August, the Wisconsin Legislature blocked publication of new state regulations. The Evers Administration advanced those regulations after a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling in Tony Evers v. Howard Marklein, 2025 WI 36, No. 2023AP2020-OA (July 8, 2025). The Legislature contended that the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision was narrow, while the Evers Administration contended that the July decision was applicable generally to agency rulemaking.

The Legislature’s block left the Evers Administration with a decision whether to file suit in support of a broader application of the July 8 decision. The Administration has now decided to sue:

The new lawsuit from Evers is the latest in a protracted power struggle with the GOP-controlled Legislature over the technical, but impactful realm of administrative rulemaking.

Evers’ lawsuit argues a July ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court allows state agencies like the Department of Natural Resources or Department of Health Services to seek publication of proposed rules even if Republican-led legislative committees haven’t finished reviewing them. In essence, Evers is claiming that while proposed rules must be submitted to lawmakers for review, his signature is all that’s needed before they can take effect. 

While the Legislature writes the laws that govern Wisconsin, agencies like the Department of Natural Resources and Department of Health Services write the rules for how those laws are carried out. For years, those rules went through a lengthy approval process requiring sign off from the governor and various legislative committees.

In July, the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down parts of state law that allowed the Legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules to block proposed rules indefinitely.

See Rich Kremer, Gov. Tony Evers sues Wisconsin GOP leaders again in state rulemaking dispute (‘Evers accuses Republican leaders of ignoring a state Supreme Court decision that reduced their power to block administrative rules’), Wisconsin Public Radio, September 12, 2025.

A Wisconsin high court decision in this new lawsuit would affect the balance of power between a new governor and the next legislature.

The Slow Motion Beauty and Skill of an Osprey’s Dive:

Watch as Ospreys hover high above, then plunge completely underwater in a dramatic fishing style no other raptor can match. Bald Eagles compete for the same prey, and their size and flight style make for a fascinating comparison. Watch full episode: The Slow Motion Beauty and Skill of an Osp…  

Accidents, Business, Daily Bread, Speaker Vos

Daily Bread for 9.13.25: Wisconsin Speaker Vos’s Business Collects Another OSHA Violation

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 80. Sunrise is 6:32 and sunset is 7:07, for 12 hours, 35 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 59.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Second Annual Food Truck Festival runs today from Noon to 6 PM.

On this day in 1956, IBM introduces the 305 RAMAC, the first commercial computer to use disk storage.

IBM 305 RAMAC system: IBM 305 main system (Processing unit, magnetic process drum, magnetic core register, electronic logical and arithmetic circuits) IBM 370 printer IBM 380 console. By Norsk Teknisk Museum – https://digitaltmuseum.org/011015239966/22-0-ibm-modell-305-ramac/media?slide=0, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link.

The gerrymandering of Wisconsin after the 2010 election gave rise to WISGOP legislators who, while positioning themselves as lawgivers, are, in fact, the sorts who struggle to run their side businesses safely:

One month before a worker severed part of his finger at a food packaging plant owned by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, federal regulators ordered the company to make sure equipment couldn’t turn on unexpectedly and injure employees, records show.

The worker, Sean Wiley, was injured in March while cleaning a large machine known as a ribbon blender at the plant on Black Hawk Drive in Burlington.

Robin J. Vos Enterprises was given two citations and initially fined about $33,000 in late July by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration after the March incident, online records show. The penalty was dropped to $19,000 as part of a settlement between the company and the agency.

The company was fined and told it had to abate the violation by March 10.

That’s the same day Wiley was injured.

Wiley previously told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he didn’t know his coworker, who he said was supposed to be working with him and guarding the machine, had been reassigned to another piece of equipment.

….

Vos, one of the most prominent and powerful Republicans in Wisconsin, is the longest-serving speaker in state history. He owns several businesses, including his food packaging company, which started as a popcorn factory. He also owns a car wash in Union Grove and numerous rental properties in Whitewater. He previously owned Knights Popcorn in Milwaukee.

See Mary Spicuzza, Inspectors warned Robin Vos’ company about equipment safety shortly before worker severed finger, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 11, 2025.

Vos’s business replied only through a spokesman about the OSHA violations.

The spokesman needn’t have bothered. It would have been faster to send a photo of Vos from the pandemic, with the assurance he offered at the time — “incredibly safe”:

From 2020: Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker wears protective gear while telling voters they are ‘incredibly safe to go out’

Tesla’s Door Design Can Trap People Inside:

When Tesla car doors lose power, you need to use the manual door release to get out. But riders and drivers can get stuck inside. Emily Chang explains.